


Infer, Intuit, Trust

by Miss_M



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beverly Katz Lives, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22323739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: He was truly alone, with Beverly.
Relationships: Will Graham & Beverly Katz
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Infer, Intuit, Trust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [impilii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/impilii/gifts).



> This is an extra treat, and it diverges from S2E4 (Takiawase). I own nothing.

They’d brought him to the supposedly sound-isolated interview room and chained him to the table. In his mind, he was thigh-deep in the swift current, the only sounds the breeze in the leaves and the whistle of the fishing line looping through the dragonfly-ridden air, elegant and purposeful. Sound and sight were the easiest senses for memory and fantasy to dredge up – taste, smell, and touch were various degrees of more elusive, even impossible.

He could smell Jack’s aftershave. 

Beverly’s voice: “Will?” The last time she’d come to see him, he’d warned her to stay away from Hannibal. The relief at hearing evidence of her continuing alive and safe startled him with its intensity.

Will opened his eyes – they watched him from across the table, both still standing, wearing almost identical expressions of mild concern. Beverly’s eyes and Jack’s mouth were tight.

Will attempted a joke. “Both of you together means either excellent news or disaster.”

Beverly glanced at Jack, who looked plain annoyed now. “Tell him,” he said without returning her gaze.

Beverly looked at Will. “You were right.”

Shock and trauma didn’t always register immediately. An amputee might get out of bed for weeks, months after, and wind up on the floor every time, never remembering they were a leg short. A bombing victim would insist they were fine while their head rang like a bell and their own blood poured out of them in multiple spots. 

Will sat still; even his hands, loosely curled, were still on the tabletop. He blinked only to moisten his cornea. His heart rate and breathing remained steady. 

“Is there more?” he asked. 

Beverly pulled out a chair, but Jack remained standing. 

“I know you said not to let Hannibal get any closer, but I had to know,” she said. “So I went to his house.”

 _Now_ Will’s heart skipped a beat. “You went…” 

She cut him off with a gesture, and Jack shifted on his feet like a boxer and glanced around the bare little room, his fists tight by his sides. 

Beverly said: “I know, Jack’s already read me the riot act _twice_ , just listen. I found evidence, Will. Not an orgy, Hannibal’s very neat and careful, but there was more, much more than we found to implicate you. I snuck out before he got home, and found Jack, who agreed that we should monitor Hannibal’s credit cards and passport.”

“He won’t make a run for it now,” Will said. “He’s too curious to see how the game turns out.”

A glance in Jack’s direction showed that Jack wasn’t ready to join the conversation yet. Will sympathized somewhat – Jack had been caught on the back foot by Will’s arrest, and now his best forensic analyst was running around half-cocked – but Jack was a part of this story, aloofness was not an option.

“Jack? Anything you want to add?”

Beverly looked down at her lap when Jack spoke, like a scolded child. 

“Only that we need to move very carefully over the next few days. We need enough circumstantial evidence to justify getting a search warrant for Dr. Lecter’s home and office, without alerting him and without fabricating what we need out of thin air.” Jack spread his arms, looking about equal parts exhausted and furious. “I am glad that the tide seems to be turning for you, Will, but this will take time. Following up on Beverly’s _illegal_ search while continuing to investigate the deaths of the judge and the bailiff in your trial, and keeping Hannibal on side… To the world and the FBI, you will remain the Chesapeake Ripper and in custody for the foreseeable. I am already bending so many rules, there’s not a straight line in sight.”

“Straight lines are absent from nature. The truth always meanders,” Will said. “Speaking of meandering, has Beverly told you that Chilton has the premises bugged, including this room?”

Beverly looked up at that, some of her customary spark back. “Dr. Chilton has agreed to cooperate with us, in exchange for hosting Dr. Lecter once he is under arrest.”

A small smile slipped out before Will could stop it. “Hannibal’s very existence exacerbates all of Frederick’s many insecurities, but don’t trust him too much. He is a better dupe than he is a liar.”

Jack leaned in, his hands flat on the table, half looming and half roosting over Will. “Here’s hoping it’s the other way around with you, Will. You will have to tell some very convincing lies to Hannibal Lecter before this is all over.”

Will met his eye and watched as the storm clouds marring Jack’s face broke apart, just a bit, at his reply: “Don’t worry about me, Jack. I think we all know how good my performance can be when I put my mind to it.”

The storm clouds scattered then regathered as Will’s jab sank in and did its damage. Jack straightened up and said something about needing to speak to Chilton, before he left the interview room.

The silence Jack’s departure left behind thickened as Will took in the reality that the orderly waiting outside the room couldn’t hear them, Chilton wasn’t listening, and for the first time in a long time, there was no rush of voices inside his head. He was truly alone, with Beverly. 

“I won’t insult you by asking if you’re okay,” Beverly said. 

“Better than I was.” He attempted another smile, but this one came out cracked. He was starting to feel unsteady, anchored by his chair and chains as he was. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you sooner, Will.”

He shook his head, taking in her expression, the pride and the guilt and the sheer sorrow in it. “You couldn’t believe what you couldn’t see. I’m just glad you took a leap of faith.”

“No,” Beverly said, almost angrily. “I should have listened to you sooner. I knew you, I knew who you were, I should have had some faith in that as well as the evidence.”

Will’s own voice echoed in the new, windswept emptiness inside his skull: _He wants to know me_ , he’d told Alana about the killer helping him at his trial. And here was Beverly saying that she knew him, like that was ever a straight line.

Will bowed his head, trying to preserve what little dignity he had left, but the chain which connected his cuffs and passed through the steel link embedded in the center of the table was too short to allow him to cover his face. Bowing low to bring his face closer to his cupped hands, he should have been praying, but he felt only a vast absence as the tears dripped from his eyes and ran between his fingers. 

“Will.” 

Beverly’s chair scraped, her feet pounded the floor. Her arm went around Will’s ribs, under his chained arms, and her other hand gripped his shoulder. Her long hair tickled his ear, and he could feel her breath on the back of his neck. Closer to him now that anyone had been in a long time – maybe ever. 

“I know we don’t do this,” Beverly said, holding him while he cried. “You can be angry with me later.”

In the distance, a muted echo from his basement cell, he thought he heard the clop of hooves. The scoured feeling in his head couldn’t last, he knew, and the closeness of Beverly’s whole, living presence unsettled as much as it held him up, but for the moment Will was content to let everything just wash over him and smooth him out, a pebble in the rushing stream.


End file.
